Seventeen Cal Poly students are currently waiting to see if the designs they created in conjunction with Hablamos Juntos last quarter will grace the hallways and directories of hospitals nationwide.
Hablamos Juntos, Spanish for “We Speak Together,” is a program sponsored by Fresno Center for Medical Education and Research at the University of California, San Francisco dedicated to bridging the language gap steadily growing in the United States, especially in health care.
The organization believes that hospital-affiliated symbols should be free of any sort of language dependency, which is why no foreign language fluency was needed to design the symbols or to interpret their meaning.
“Symbols are visual images that represent a reference, a word or a real world object, place or concept,” according to the program’s Web site.
The purpose of the project is to design a set of symbols that can be universally recognized and reach speakers of all languages. Hablamos Juntos designed 28 original symbols in 2006 — illustrating common places around hospitals such as the chapel, surgery wing and waiting room, and are looking for another 15 symbols from college design students.
This is where Cal Poly art and design assistant professor Katherine McCormick entered the scene. She and a previous design class helped Hablamos Juntos with the design of the original 28 symbols, and she believed her students were ready to take on more. She sent a detailed application to the program, fighting to become one of three universities chosen to design more symbols based on the originals.
Graduate student programs from the University of Cincinnati and Iowa State were chosen, along with the undergraduate program from Cal Poly.
McCormick’s students spent the past spring quarter dedicated to the project to create symbols that meshed with what Hablamos Juntos had already created.
“The new symbols had to fit into the old design language,” McCormick said.
By meshing both design languages and actual languages, the students collaborated on 12 new symbols, including designs for ophthalmology, nutrition and respiratory services. Each student was given individual assignments that were then assessed by the class, who, as a whole, decided what worked.
Multiple designs, some for the same symbol, were sent to Hablamos Juntos in late September. Testing for each of the 15 categories, including the 12 that Cal Poly students submitted, is now in progress. Testing will rely on surveys of both health care workers and designers to get feedback before making a decision about which symbols are chosen. Results should be known soon after testing wraps up in December.
Now that the symbols are in the process of being tested, are the students simply holding their breath, waiting for response? No way.
While the other two universities have dedicated their fall quarters to “research method” classes concerning the symbols, Cal Poly has been working on a project that would allow a hospital visitor to become familiar with the designs.
One student created a series of posters that explain each symbol, while another made flash cards that could be placed in the waiting room and another designed a directory that would feature each design in multiple languages.
Art and design senior Sarah Hamling stirred laughter from the group when, during her presentation of her children’s book illustrating the symbols, she realized her yellow shirt perfectly matched the cover.
“Watch out,” McCormick said. “When you’re working on a project you will subconsciously start to dress in the color palette.”
This sense of immersion seems to affect every student in the class; the dedication came forth first in the designs and now in the application.
“I wanted to show the symbols in a very simplistic way. That way, the reader can learn about them but have it be interactive as well,” Adam Wirdack said of his project.
While Hablamos did not petition the class to create these projects, McCormick came up with the idea as another way to present the symbols to the program while simultaneously allowing students to create another professional piece of work to add to their portfolios.
“I think it’s good for Hablamos to see their options. From what I know of dealing with them before, they will be really excited to see these,” she said.
McCormick and her students are now partnering with the local French Hospital to work both the symbols and the application projects into their facilities, which would be step one in Hablamos’s mission.
The unique design team at Cal Poly has not only taken on an influential project, but also finished it. They have not only finished it, but also have begun to implement it locally.
“Eventually, every hospital and health facility in the nation will adopt these symbols,” McCormick said. “It is great to be able to be part of the solution of something in such a large context.”